{"id":9931,"date":"2019-08-10T09:05:46","date_gmt":"2019-08-10T09:05:46","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/re-photo.co.uk\/?p=9931"},"modified":"2019-08-10T09:05:47","modified_gmt":"2019-08-10T09:05:47","slug":"shutdown-knife-crime","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"http:\/\/re-photo.co.uk\/?p=9931","title":{"rendered":"Shutdown Knife Crime"},"content":{"rendered":"\n
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Operation Shutdown is a campaign to end the deaths from knife and gun crime on our streets, which have been rising over the last few years. Most of those in the campaign are people who have suffered the pain of losing a relative – brother, son, nephew, uncle – or friend to knife crime.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

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The great majority of the victims are young men, in their teens or twenties, and although many are black what they virtually all have in common is that they come from working class families mainly living in deprived areas.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Almost certainly the biggest driver behind the increase in deaths has been austerity, with the huge cuts this has forced councils to make in youth services and other vital support for families. Some of the violence on the streets is certainly gang-related, often concerned with drugs, but those killed are often people on the periphery or innocent bystanders.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

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It would be impossible not to empathise with the suffering of mothers, fathers and other relatives as they talk about their loss, but I don’t always feel that some of the measures they suggest would do anything to curb the growth of knife crime. I have very little faith in their idea that the government’s emergency committee COBRA considering the problem would have any real impact, and it could well worsen the situation.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Of course there are things that they call for that would help. Restoring the cuts in vital community services is an obvious need, and reversing the cuts in police numbers could help too, though perhaps only if this led to more sensitive and informed community policing.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

We need also to look at ways to reduce the power and influence of gangs, which would almost certainly include an evidence-led reform of our laws about drugs, something which succesive governments have resisted. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

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After a rally opposive Downing St, Operation Shutdown marched to Westminster Bridge, where they presented wreaths to a police officer and hold a silence in memory of PC Keith Palmer, killed outside Parliament by terrorists before going on to block the bridge and hold a further rally.
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More at <\/em>Knife crime Operation Shutdown<\/a><\/p>\n\n\n\n

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All photographs on this and my other sites, unless otherwise stated, are taken by and copyright of Peter Marshall, and are available for reproduction or can be bought as prints.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

There are no adverts on this site and it receives no sponsorship, and I like to keep it that way. But it does take a considerable amount of my time and thought, and if you enjoy reading it, please share on social media<\/em><\/strong>.
And small donations via Paypal<\/a> – perhaps the cost of a beer – would be appreciated. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

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Operation Shutdown is a campaign to end the deaths from knife and gun crime on our streets, which have been rising over the last few years. Most of those in the campaign are people who have suffered the pain of losing a relative – brother, son, nephew, uncle – or friend to knife crime. The … Continue reading Shutdown Knife Crime<\/span><\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[3,7],"tags":[625,630,623,279,622,624,619,627,621,617,620,616,628,294,629,618,513,626],"class_list":["post-9931","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-my-own-work","category-political-issues","tag-austerity","tag-bereaved","tag-black","tag-cuts","tag-deaths","tag-deprived-areas","tag-families","tag-family-support","tag-gun-crime","tag-knife-crime","tag-knives","tag-operation-shutdown","tag-police","tag-policing","tag-sandi-bogle","tag-victims","tag-working-class","tag-youth-services"],"aioseo_notices":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"http:\/\/re-photo.co.uk\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/9931","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"http:\/\/re-photo.co.uk\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"http:\/\/re-photo.co.uk\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/re-photo.co.uk\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/re-photo.co.uk\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=9931"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"http:\/\/re-photo.co.uk\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/9931\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":9932,"href":"http:\/\/re-photo.co.uk\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/9931\/revisions\/9932"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"http:\/\/re-photo.co.uk\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=9931"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/re-photo.co.uk\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=9931"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/re-photo.co.uk\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=9931"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}